(page 10-11) Tail cone finished.........
                                              

The side skins and upper side skins fit well with the initial edge brake (break, in Oregonian) of about 2 degrees.  No gap in the seams of the lap joints.  The top skin was another animal entirely.  Near the aft end of the fuselage, a much greater brake angle was needed.  Happily, the device I showed a few posts back worked like a charm once again.  This tool is worth every penny.  I advised leaving the blue plastic on while braking the edges to prevent scratching.  I had removed the plastic, however, before final clecoing.  Clear packing tape was applied to the edges before using the tool (repeatedly, in order to get the desired angle).  This worked quite well.  No scrathes on the alclad.

 

Speaking of scratching the alclad, I think builders worry way too much about this.  All that pristine aluminum is going to get scuffed with ScotchBrite before priming, so why worry?  Deep scratches should be avoided, of course, but I don't sweat the small stuff.

On an unrelated topic, I think way too much metal is removed in the name of deburring.  A chamfer should not be put on the holes.  At most, burrs protruding above the surface should be removed.  Quoting from page 87 of the sixth edition of Standard Aircraft Handbook, which ships with every Van's kit, "Burrs under either head of a rivet do not, in general, result in unacceptable riveting.  The burrs do not have to be removed......<snip>......care must be taken to limit the amount of metal removed when deburring.  Removel of any appreciable amount of metal from the edge of the rivet hole will result in a riveted joint of lower strength."  The punched holes in the aluminum really don't have to be deburred at all.  For the sheared edges of the sheets, the sharp edge should be deburred.  These, like all the opinions expressed here, are my own.  Other builders should make their own decisions.

(page 10-10) A cluster..........                     

...of clecos.  The side skins (left and right and upper left and right) would have exhausted my supply of clecos had I done all four skins at once as called for in the manual.  Except for curved surfaces, I usually cleco every other hole, rivet all the holes left open, then remove the clecos and rivet the rest.  Clearly I didn't follow this procedure for the stabilator bearing plates (the dense cluster shown in the photo), the reason being that a gap of from 1/8th to 1/4 inch existed between the plates and the skins.  Once again, I thought something from Van's was less than perfect.  Wrong again.  Putting all the clecos in closed the gaps and everything looks great.  The side not shown is completely riveted, and I hope to finish this side today.  The Spousal Unit (my beautiful and exhausted wife, Karen, who is working all waking hours preparing to defend her PhD dissertation in August) has said she wants me out of the house until this evening.  Wilco, my dear.

(page 10-09) Static system...                                           

Took a while to decipher this.  The pages sent inside the ziplok with the static stuff refer to an RV-9, so the diagram didn't match the build manual.  Also, the HomebuiltHELP videos (the biggest bargin in homebuilding) show locations for the various bits which don't match the description in the manual.  Both showed the plastic tee on the side rather than top center as the manual specifies.  The manual calls for heating the 1/8th-inch tubing prior to slipping over the fitting, but this wasn't required.  For the transition to the 1/4-inch tubing it was quite necessary.  The procedure calls for slipping a short piece of 1/8th-inch tube over the plastic fitting, then slipping the 1/4-inch tube over that.  I slipped the 1/8th-inch tube on (no heat), heated a cup of water to almost-boiling in the microwave, stuck the 1/4-inch tube in the water for about 30 seconds, then slid it on.  Worked perfectly.  Very tight.  I'm wondering now if heating the 1/8th-inch tubing, though not required for the slip fit, would have somehow helped the bond with the plastic.  If I had it to do over, I'd do this.

The other 1/4-inch tube shown is for the ADAHRS.  Not sure how this fits into the grand scheme.  The zip ties are not pulled tight yet.

(page 10-08) Static port questions...                  

....answered (I hope).  After reading the instructions for installation of the static ports, I was skeptical.  Several people on the forum had trouble driving the mandrel out of the rivet once it was pulled.  Others had problems securing the 1/8th inch tube to the shop head of the pulled rivet.

I pulled the rivet, and, sure enough, the mandrel wouldn't budge.  I feared that tapping the drift too vigorously would damage the skin.  I used a Dremel tool with a cut-off wheel to remove about 1/64th of an inch from the shop head of the rivet.  The mandrel pushed out with no tapping.  If I had to do it again, I'd used a sanding drum rather than a cut-off wheel to remove the end of the rivet.

The next concern was that the shop head of the rivet over which the 1/8th inch tube must be pushed was quite short, even before removing a bit of it to facilitate mandrel removal.  It seemed that it would be quite easy to persuade the tubing to separate from the rivet.  The instructions say to "seal the joint with RTV", so, after cleaning the aluminum with acetone, I applied a substantial amount of RTV.  After hardening, it seems secure.  Reading the forum, I learned that "regular" RTV is corrosive to aluminum and that "sensor safe" RTV must be used.  Most auto parts stores have this.